Yard Markets Design To World

Frigate Aimed For Foreign Navies

March 25, 1992|By BARRY FLYNN Daily Press

NORFOLK — Newport News Shipbuilding Tuesday publicly unveiled a new design for a frigate it hopes to sell to foreign navies, allowing it entrance to the international warship market for the first time in more than a century of business.

Marketing director Tom Balfour said he has been quietly trying for about six months to sell the design along with construction contracts for such ships to Turkey and other countries.

The yard went public with its effort because its competitors in the market have likely got wind of it by now, Balfour said. He unveiled the design at ComDef '92, a weapons trade show sponsored by the National Security Industrial Association this week at the Marriott Waterside Hotel in Norfolk.

Balfour said the shipyard is seeking to exploit the frigate-class market because it is a big one.

As big as the market is, the new warship could never generate enough new work to make up for what the yard is losing with the loss of U.S. Navy submarine work, Balfour said. But the frigate could account for a worthwhile amount of new ship construction locally, said yard spokesman Jack Garrow.

"I'd look at three or four ships a year as a very good market," Balfour said. "Three or four sales a year would be oustanding business."

He said the yard would be able to sell its frigate for less than the estimated $400 million to $500 million the ships currently command in the market.

Thus, if things went well, four frigates a year would put the value of production at well over $1 billion a year. By contrast, the next aircraft carrier the Navy hopes to build is currently estimated at $4.2 billion, Garrow said.

But not all the frigates would necessarily be built at the Peninsula yard.

Some copies of the ship, dubbed the FF-21 for fast frigate for the 21st century, could be built entirely or partially by the buying country, Balfour said.

Such so-called co-production deals are common in the international arms trade, Balfour said.

"For sure, the first several would be built in Newport News," Balfour said.

Balfour said there are 10 or 12 countries worldwide that are currently buying such ships, though he declined to name them.

In response to a reporter's question, he confirmed that Newport News Shipbuiding had made a presentation on the ship in Ankara, Turkey last fall.

However, Balfour said members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which include Turkey, Canada and most of western Europe, are least likely to buy the frigate because most of those countries produce their own vessels in the class.

Instead, the Middle East, the Far East and Latin America are likely markets, Balfour said.

Worldwide, there are 20 to 30 frigates under construction at any time, Balfour said. He said it was not likely the yard would develop other classes of warship for worldwide sales.

The dominant producer in the frigate business is Germany, Balfour said. France, The Netherlands, Italy and the United Kingdom have their own versions.

But the Newport News FF-21 is "a more current design than any of those ships on the market," he said.

That design was developed over the past year and a half by a research and development team at the shipyard that is constantly looking into new potential products, Balfour said.

The ship could be built in 42 months, or three and a half years from the time a contract is signed, he said.

Balfour said the Newport News design is salable because it is a versatile ship designed to be fast, have a long range, carry substantial airpower and be difficult to detect on radar. He said he could not estimate when agreement for a sale might be made. Acknowledging he might be close with some countries, Balfour said, "close can be a year."